Each January, America takes time to remember the lasting impact Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made during a dark period of this nation’s history. As racial tensions reached a fever pitch, King embraced a non-violent approach toward civil rights that was completely at odds from the views of contemporaries including Malcolm X.

In the decades since his assassination, however, King’s legacy has been misused to insinuate he would have supported any number of leftist causes. One of the latest – and most egregious – examples came during Health and Human Service Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ recent comments in recognition of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

In a thinly-veiled plug for the monumentally unpopular ObamaCare law, Sebelius made a clumsy attempt to equate King’s fight for equality to the federal government’s dismantling of the nation’s healthcare system.

“As we celebrate the inspirational life of Dr. King,” she said, “please join us in this historic effort by helping your friends, neighbors, and loved ones get covered through the Marketplace.”

This was not the first time King’s memory was used by the Obama administration to sell socialized medicine to an unreceptive public. Last year, in recognition of the 50th anniversary of the famous civil rights march in D.C., Barack Obama himself suggested King would have been a supporter of the law.

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Now, as the push to salvage ObamaCare has escalated, Sebelius is returning to that well in an apparent effort to convince wary citizens that, if he were alive, King would be a vocal supporter of the boondoggle.

“Dr. King memorably described inequality in health care as the ‘most shocking and inhumane’ form of injustice,” Sebelius claimed, suggesting “there is nothing more essential to opportunity than good health.”

Proponents of ObamaCare have already resorted to calling on leftist celebrities to pressure their fans to sign up for coverage. With the results of those efforts obviously lacking, the administration is now using the memory of an iconic civil rights leader to hawk the troubled law.

For the rest of the nation, however, it is a day to acknowledge the selfless, faith-driven mission King carried out during his quest to achieve equality for all Americans.